Then Came the Rain
by SabaceanBabe
Summary: Her words – it’s words echoed in Helo’s skull, pounded behind his eyes as he worked, his hands slick with blood, or whatever it was the frakking toasters used to fake it.


Title: Then Came the Rain

Author: SabaceanBabe

Rating: pg

Word count: 1,100

Pairing: Helo/Sharon

Spoilers: for Kobol's Last Gleaming 1

Author's note: written for the Kindreds Summer Heat Angstathon; thank you so much to Lee in Limbo for the beta. Woohoo! I finally got something done on time! \o/

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"_Just do it."_

Her words – _it's_ words echoed in Helo's skull, pounded behind his eyes as he worked, his hands slick with blood, or whatever it was the frakking toasters used to fake it. His heart still raced in his chest, and he felt sick to his stomach as the adrenalin took too long to fade. The Cylon just stared at him with Sharon's eyes. Eyes filled with pain.

"Stop that," he rasped out. His hands shook as he packed the powder from two now-useless bullets into the hole he'd put in her shoulder.

"Stop what?" Her voice was petulant, or maybe just resigned.

"Stop looking at me." A harsh laugh escaped her even as she closed her eyes, but she couldn't – or wouldn't – stop the wince of pain, another nail in his coffin.

She swallowed hard. Eyes still closed, she asked, "What are you doing?"

Helo ignored her, rummaged through his pack for a lighter. A rumble of thunder sounded in the distance and he looked up at the sky. Clouds rolled in from the west, the front not yet advanced enough to block out the setting sun. _That's just great. More rain._ His fingers closed around the lighter and he pulled it out of the pack.

"So you're not going to answer me?"

He turned back toward the Cylon, but he refused to meet her – _it's_ – eyes, refused to answer it, refused to think of her as Sharon. Instead, he focused on the wound. He needed her healthy to help him get off this wasted world, to get back to the fleet.

"Helo—"

"Shut up." It hurt to just hear the word, not even truly his name, just a call sign. But it had meant so much more, these past weeks. Right up until the moment he'd seen another copy of her and realized how frakking stupid he'd been. Weeks, _months _with a Cylon, and he'd never even suspected. A small, tentative voice at the back of his mind tried to tell him that there was no way he could have known that the Cylons were cloning humans, but he cut that voice off as harshly as he had the Cylon's.

Angry with her and with himself, he flicked the switch on the lighter, turned up the flame in an effort to keep the strengthening breeze from blowing it out. She frowned as he brought the flame to her shoulder.

"What—?" She bit off the question as he touched the flame to the gunpowder. The powder lit with a hiss and a tendril of white smoke drifted up from it. She made a choked noise, arched her back, lifting her torso from the hard concrete. Helo squelched a pang of remorse at causing her yet more pain. _Dammit, she's a Cylon. The pain's not even real_, he tried to tell himself, but the tears in her dark eyes, her suddenly pale skin painted with a light sheen of sweat, told him he was wrong.

The pain was excruciating, worse than anything she'd ever felt, than anything she ever wanted to feel again. Sharon couldn't escape it any more than she could escape him.

The fact that he hadn't killed her, and that he was giving her medical care of a sort, gave her hope. When he had failed to put a second bullet into her, she knew that he wasn't going to kill her after all. Sharon understood why he was being such a bastard toward her. Although he'd never said the words, a part of him still loved her.

A bolt of lightning shot across the clouds in her peripheral vision. She looked down at her shoulder, felt the tortured skin and muscle pull with the movement. Smoke spiraled up from the wound and drifted away on the wind, which carried with it the scent of rain and ozone. She blinked back tears that weren't entirely caused by physical pain.

"It's cauterized now," Helo said, unnecessarily. He wouldn't meet her eyes as he continued. "I need you alive. I want off this rock, and you're going to get me into that hangar."

Sharon laughed and tried to sit up, ignoring the pain that exploded from the still-smoking wound. "You make it sound so simple." She managed to prop herself up on her right elbow without passing out and looked at Helo, crouched down beside her, just out of reach. She shook her head. _As if I _could_ attack him right now, even if I wanted to._

"It _is_ simple." Another flash of lightning and the wind picked up, sent strands of loose hair whipping into her eyes, tickling at her nose and lips. Helo looked up at the sky as a loud crash of thunder reverberated through the ruined city street.

"Helo…" She wanted to reason with him, to make him understand that she wasn't his enemy. She wasn't sure what she _was_, anymore, but she knew that much. But he wasn't ready to listen.

"Just shut the frak up," he barked, as the first fat drops of rain began to fall. She gasped when a cool drop of water found the center of her wound, but she decided this new pain was worth it when Helo winced as though he felt it himself.

Within seconds, the rain fell as though from buckets, the sound as it hit the pavement almost deafening. Lightning flashed and thunder crashed, and Sharon realized the storm was right on top of them. Not taking his eyes from her, coming to the same realization, Helo scrambled back under an overhang, sidearm in hand.

Sharon rolled to her knees, allowing a sob to escape, knowing that he couldn't hear it over the sound of the storm. She cradled her left arm to her stomach, at once protecting both her injured shoulder and the spark of a new life that nestled within her. Painfully, she dragged herself over to a wall, but she didn't try to make her way under the overhang with Helo, who had his gun trained on her. She didn't think he'd use it on her again, but, reminded that they had created something miraculous between them, she chose not to take the risk.

She closed her eyes for a moment, her head resting against the concrete wall, the rain cascading over her. When she opened them again, her gaze went immediately to Helo. Unaware that she watched, he pounded his head against the wall once, twice, the unguarded expression on his face that of a man who had lost everything.


End file.
